Hao Huiyu
Hao Huiyu (Hǎo Huìyǔ in chinese pinyin) 'is a first year at Rinkai Girls' High School and is from Hong Kong. In the Under 15 Asia Tournament she achieved the silver medal; she claims she only got a silver medal because the tournament used Japanese rules, which she was not familiar with at the time. She is one of three newcomers to the Rinkai team. Appearance Hao has brown eyes and blue hair with a headband, her hair tied in a bunch in the back. She wears a blue shift dress and attached wear with a strap. Personality Hao is shown to be quiet, calm, cool, and collected. However, she is quite confident in her abilities as well, as she thought that the Asia tournament would be a piece of cake, as well as when Satoha asked Hao to teach her Chinese mahjong, Hao responds with "I can teach you the rules, but are you sure? No one can beat me at that, you know." It can also be inferred that she is rather proud of her Chinese roots, as she calls out "huu" (the Mandarin declaration of winning, similar to "ron" or "tsumo") before she declares her win in Japanese terms, as well as only being able to play in the Chinese-style, despite using Japanese rules. Playing Style / Abilites Hao is originally a Chinese mahjong champion and is the current silver medalist in the Under 15 Asia Tournament. To unleash her true power, Hao has to play like she would with Chinese rules, even if that is detrimental to her in the ruleset in use. This mainly shows in her sacrificing effectiveness and score to form Yaku that are valid only in Chinese rules. For example, she sacrificed Pinfu and Iipeikou from her hand to create a '"Pure shifted chows" pattern, despite this both reducing her wait and lowering her score. Hao also never declares riichi, and does not seem to care about dora when attacking, as neither of those exists in Chinese rules. If she does not play Chinese-style, she will not get good draws and has a hard time winning. Hao focused on defensive play in the quarterfinals, which shows that she can still adapt to this characteristic feature of the Japanese rules. However, she tries to win every single hand, as exhaustive draws are also not a feature in Chinese mahjong. Mako Someya also mentioned that at times Hao reminds her of Hisa Takei because of how often Hao cuts the amount of tiles she can wait on in order to win. Plot Combined Training Camp Arc Hao appeared at the end of the East Tokyo final when Kouko Fukuyo and Sukoya Kokaji were giving their run down on the Rinkai team. Final Eight Arc She is shown entering the tournament hall with the rest of Rinkai's team. During the vanguard match, Rinkai's coach says that she wants Yuuki Kataoka and Hao says that she thought their coach only took overseas students; however, the coach tells her that is the school's policy, not hers. When Satoha returns from her match, she and the rest of their team politely greet their ace. Hao and the rest of Rinkai then discuss Yuuki's play tatics during the vanguard match. She then leaves for the sergeant match. After not winning the first hand, she immediately wins with a cheap'' tsumo. Satoha then has a flashback to when Hao was first recruited to join Rinkai. Here, Satoha wants to be taught Chinese mahjong, but Hao tells her that nobody can beat her at that. Hao is seen soundly defeating Satoha, Megan, and Nelly in Chinese mahjong before explaining that she came to Japan to practise Riichi mahjong because the rules are similar to the Asian tournaments'. She explains that the coach initially had her play in the Japanese-style, but the correct tiles wouldn't come to Hao until she went back to her Chinese-style mahjong, even under Japanese rulesets. Megan comments that Hao never declares riichi because of this; Hao responds saying she has no need for riichi. As the game progresses Hao wins off of Mako Someya and later on Chikako Himori, furthering Rinkai's lead. When Chikako calls a chii, to remain in tenpai it throws off Hao because Chinese rulesets do not have the ''noten-bappu rule, this oversight on Hao's part is enough for Mako to win a hand. Hao then says that she has much to learn which means she can still get stronger. She is later shown winning off of Mako, with a hell-wait similar to Hisa Takei's style. When the match is finished, Hao walks away with the most points and an extension to Rinkai's lead. At the start of Choe Myeonghwa's match, Hao asks their coach how she asked Choe to approach the lieutenant's match. Alexandra said the same thing to Choe as she did to Hao: there's no need to show all of her full power right now and to keep up the defense. Before the start of Megan Davin's match, she tells Megan to "just do as you wish" when it comes to facing her opponents head-on, much to Alexandra's annoyance. When Megan begins to play strangely, Hao asks Alexandra about Megan's ability, and for clarification on what they currently know about it, which is not a lot. After Nelly comes back from her match, Hao talks about her number counting she does at the end of match and calls it something like bluffing, which is considered bad manners at a Japanese mahjong table. National Championship Arc Nelly brings up why Satoha came to Rinkai in the first place and Hao is also curious. During the conversation though, she finds Choe to be a little weird. Trivia * Although Hao is said to be from Hong Kong, the only Chinese she is shown speaking is Mandarin, despite the fact that primary language used in Hong Kong is Cantonese. ** It is possible that she learned mahjong from a Mandarin teacher or coach, as playing in China would require Mandarin rather than Cantonese. Category:Rinkai Girls' High School Category:Characters